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Comming Soon - China!
Sunday, May 07, 2006

We are very excited to have been contracted to install one of the first challenge ropes courses in China. High Five Adventure's Austin Paulsen and Eric Cockren will be flying to Xiamen, China, on May 13th. We will be building an extensive challenge course at the Xiamen Hot Springs Resort just across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan. The project will take two weeks and we will be reporting back to the blog when possible. Austin will also be making contact with the Chinese Mountaineering Association to investigate permits for commercial mountain guiding in China. Please stay tuned to share the sights and adventures of High5adventure.org.

Challenge Ropes Courses come to China!
Wednesday, May 17, 2006

I am excited to be writing from Xiamen, China. Eric and I are here to build one of the first Challenge Ropes Courses in China and are honored to have been invited to this beautiful and hospitable city. Xiamen lies on the coast of south China across the strait from Tiawan. The course is being built at the Riyuegu Hot Springs Resort by High Five Adventures.

For the last two days we have been working long hours in the rain trying to get a head start on the project before a projected Typhoon hits this area. The typhoon was expected to make landfall in Hong Kong quite some distance to the south. The city made extensive preparation and evacuated many thousands of people. An unuasual storm track, however, has sent Typhoon Chanchu to the north instead and directly up the Strait of Taiwan toward Xiamen. Yesterday, the city and resort community began adding guy lines to trees and stabilizing other infrastructure. In 1999 the last typhoon to hit this area uprooted all the trees on the island. Today, every tree you see on this loose sand island is younger than 7 years old.

We are unable to work today because of the extensive rain at the leading edge of the storm. While the winds are strong they have been reduced as the storm has dragged along the coast. Earlier, they were reported to be 180 km/hr. While the winds pose some danger, locals are more concerned about the amount of rain and the mud and rock slides they cause on the surrounding hillsides. The resort staff are confident that none of these hazards are unmanageable.

Our hope is to get back to work in a day or two so that we will complete the project on time and have some days left to travel. In the mean time we have great support from the resort staff and from the Taiwan based teambuilding business, Gungho, who contracted us to do the work. One of our great pleasures is to help train local staff how to manage the course and provide the necessary maintenance. I will be adding further information and photos about our adventure as time permits. I hope readers will stay tuned and share in this unique opportunity.

Project Completion: Return from China
Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Sorry for the long delay since the last entry. It was very interesting to experience the great China censorship. After being able to post the first two entries, I was surprised when I keep getting denied access to Blogger.com which hosts our Trip Dispatches page. It was interesting to learn that the Chinese government allows the internet providers in country to keep track of and disallow questionable material. Google in China is able to provide some of its services, but not Blogger.com which it owns. Some material gets through, because of the Chinese public’s appetite for blogs (generally non-political) and the amount of traffic. Speaking of appetite, we had the opportunity to sample some of the more interesting food offerings in this part of the world including a local dish of sand worms. Yum!

During our blackout we were able to complete our project: building 7 high elements including a climbing tower, giant's swing, catwalk, high tension traverse, dangle trio, pamper pole, and zipline. All these activities were constructed on 55’ telephone poles sunk in concrete. The work was completed in pouring rain (a result of the typhoon) for the entire building process. Nothing like climbing a slick pole with 30 pounds of tools dangling from your harness. Additionally all the work was completed with battery powered tools because of the voltage differences in China.

Once the project was completed, we flew back up to Bejing and were able to visit the Forbidden City and climb the Great Wall of China, two of the great wonders of this ancient culture. While we enjoyed our visit, it was just a tease and has fueled a desire to return. Fortunately, we anticipate being able to visit again during future climbing instruction clinics and additional challenge course services.

We arrived back from China around 10pm on the evening of May 27th. We had left Bejing at 4pm on the 27th and had flown for more than 17 hours. It is interesting to relive much of the 27th since we were 12 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.

This project was one of the most rewarding of our careers. I hope you have enjoyed the brief text and images and your interest has also been peaked.